Posted: Wednesday June 05, 2002 12:27 PM
Updated: Wednesday June 05, 2002 9:24 PM
We have a few burning baseball questions, and we're sure you do, too. Drop us a quick one or two and, if we like 'em enough, we'll try to answer them here every week during the season. CNNSI.com's John Donovan takes a poke at these three this week ...
1
Interleague play is upon us again. Are there some matchups worth watching?
Matt Williams and the Diamondbacks held off the Yankees in Game 7 to win the World Series.
Jefff Gross/Allsport
Sure there are. There are always some good series out there. The problem is there are some really bad ones, too.
For the first time this season, there are at least different matchups: The National League East plays the American League Central, the NL Central plays the AL West and the NL West plays the AL East. Because of a variety of factors, not everyone will play everyone else in those matchups, and some teams will play beyond those divisional head-butts.
This year, too, interleague play will be finished before the calendar is flipped to July. In years past, interleague play has straddled the All-Star Game in early July.
You get the basic idea ...
The good: The world champion Diamondbacks start off their American League trek in Boston this weekend, followed next week by a World Series rematch with the Yankees in New York. Barry Bonds and the San Francisco Giants roll into Yankee Stadium on Friday as the warmup act.
You'll have your regular big-city, cross-state and cross-country interleague matchups this month -- the Cubs and White Sox, the Yankees and Mets, the A's and Giants, the Rangers and Astros, the Angels and Dodgers, the Marlins and Devil Rays, the Expos and Blue Jays -- starting June 14. They all play each other again on the last weekend of interleague, which begins two weeks later, on June 28.
The bad: Anyone for the Padres at the Royals? How about the Royals at the Expos? The Tigers at the Marlins? The Rangers at the Pirates? The Expos at Detroit? Milwaukee anywhere? Oh, be still our beating hearts.
The … interesting: Well, those World Series rematches (D'backs-Yanks, Yanks-Mets, Braves-Twins, Orioles-Phillies, Padres-Yankees, Marlins-Indians) always hold some intrigue.
Roberto Alomar, part of one of the biggest trades of the offseason, returns to play the team that dealt him when the Mets travel to Cleveland this weekend. And the Seattle Mariners get to see Ken Griffey Jr. from across the field when they play in Cincinnati June 18-20.
2
You think Curt Schilling can win 30 games this season?
Schilling has not issued a walk in his last five starts, a string of 37 innings and 138 batters.
AP
If anyone can, it's the Arizona Diamondbacks' workhorse and co-World Series MVP.
But let's be serious here. Schilling won't. There hasn't been a 30-game winner in baseball in more than 20 years. Before that, there wasn't one in 34 years. It's only happened 20 times in the modern era.
It just doesn't happen. At least not anymore.
When Detroit's Denny McLain went 31-6 in 1968 -- he is baseball's last 30-win pitcher -- he made 41 starts. He pitched 336 innings. Those were the days with four-man rotations, guys that would throw deep into the game (Pitch count? What's a pitch count?), bullpens that were there for emergency only and a whole different mindset about a starter's importance. Those days are gone.
Schilling is an old-style pitcher, for sure. He has led the league in starts three times. He throws a ton of innings. He's led the league in complete games four times.
But he's never started more than 35 games, though he has done that twice. And 35 games are a lot of games to start these days.
Winning 30 games in 35 starts? He'd have to be nearly perfect.
Right now, Schilling is nearly that. He is 11-1 in 13 starts this season and still has a month or more to go before the All-Star break (though, the way he's going, he won't get much of a break). He's won eight in a row and clearly is dominating the opposition. Batters are hitting just .204 off him. He leads the league in strikeouts and he's averaging less than one walk for every nine innings he pitches. He's proven he can put in the innings and stay healthy.
If anyone can win 30 games, it's Schilling. But it's a huge if. And the thinking here is he can't. No one can anymore.
3
Wow, one exciting draft, eh? (Zzzzzzzzz.)
The Pirates took Ball State right-hander Bryan Bullington with the No. 1 pick in Tuesday's baseball draft.
AP
Sarcasm. We get it.
So there's no draft "lottery" with a bunch of ping pong balls in baseball. So there's no Mel Kiper. The June draft -- officially known as the Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft -- is every bit as important, especially to the small-revenue teams out there.
And who wants to watch 50 rounds of "The Tampa Bay Devil Rays select Joe Strongarm of South North Central High" anyway?
The draft may not be televised for two days with analysis out the ying-yang, but without it, teams like the Minnesota Twins, the Oakland A's, the Cincinnati Reds, the Milwaukee Brewers, the Kansas City Royals and many more of the financially challenged stand even less of a chance than they do now.
With the price of good free-agent talent these days, teams have to rely on drafting -- then signing and developing -- the players they've spent all that money to scout. Even that is becoming increasingly difficult, and expensive, especially with the top choices.
The June draft is a crapshoot, like most drafts. Baseball America reports that more than 35 percent of first-round draft picks never play in the majors. And the first-round is supposed to be as close to a sure thing as you get.
Still, millions are spent on the evaluation of players from high schools, colleges and elsewhere throughout the world. As in any draft, the first rounds, and the No. 1 picks, get all the attention. No. 1 Chipper Jones worked out for the Braves in 1990. No. 1 Brien Taylor didn't for the New York Yankees the next year.
But it's the lower rounds that often pay off best. Mike Piazza, the New York Mets' All-Star catcher, was picked No. 1,390 overall in the 1988 draft, by the Los Angeles Dodgers.
So if a name like Bryan Bullington means nothing to you now -- he was the Ball State pitcher taken No. 1 on Tuesday by the Pittsburgh Pirates -- it means a lot to the Pirates.
Matt Williams and the Diamondbacks held off the Yankees in Game 7 to win the World Series.
Schilling has not issued a walk in his last five starts, a string of 37 innings and 138 batters.
The Pirates took Ball State right-hander Bryan Bullington with the No. 1 pick in Tuesday's baseball draft.
